


In Haste

by MercuryGray



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: Alternate Timelines, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Marriage of Convenience, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-09-25 05:24:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9804401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray/pseuds/MercuryGray
Summary: Emma's early interlude with Frank has had some different (and unexpected) consequences, and help comes from a similarly unexpected place.(An alternate timeline for Season 2)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The harm of Years was on him](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9070270) by [middlemarch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlemarch/pseuds/middlemarch). 



> Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure;  
> Married in haste, we may repent at leisure. 
> 
> \- William Congreve, The Old Bachelor

She hadn't meant for it to happen this way - but then again, who ever does?

 

She hadn't felt well for a good number of days, her stomach at odds with everything she tried to eat that wasn't a bit of dry toast. "It is all that filthy air," her mother pronounced, laying an expert hand to Emma's forehead. "You must stay home today. They cannot expect the nurses to work if they themselves are sick!"

 

But when one day turned to two, and two to three, even Mrs. Green was convinced it was not one of the usual complaints to be nursed with ginger and barley-water, and Emma was bundled up back to the hospital for a more thorough examination.

 

How strange it felt, to be the one examined! She'd watched Foster do this so many times on others to have it done upon herself was...strange. Miss Phinney lingered in the background, waiting should the examination require a more ...invasive touch. 

 

First the usual things, pulse, tongue, eyes, heart, Foster's questions quick while he counted beats, examined sclera. Could she eat? Not much. Was she having trouble sleeping? Nothing unusual. Any sign of fever, of rash? None to be found. How were her bowel movements - regular? And her menses? Yes, and...no. She had been scant, since starting at the hospital, the stress...it wasn't unheard of...Two months, perhaps - or was it three?

 

Foster listened, considered - and then withdrew with Miss Phinney to the far side of the room, their faces hidden as they consulted. Emma watched Mary's posture change. Then Foster left the room, and it was Mary who turned back to the two of them.

 

"Well?" Jane Green did not like to be kept waiting.

 

Mary drew a breath, looking at Emma with a pained expression, the kind she'd often wear when telling a man he was about to die. Emma realized half a second before she said it what Mary's news was, why Foster had left and why her expression was now so very grave. 

 

"Mrs. Green, I believe your daughter's pregnant."

 

Her mother stood, stunned, for a moment, and then realized that this was not a joke, but very, very real, her own mental addition totalling the same sum. She gave Miss Phinney an outraged look that the most fierce of war gods would have admired, seized Emma's wrist and nearly dragged her from the room. Emma could practically hear the shouting as her mother dragged her back downstairs. Here it was! Proof positive that all her fears had been completely valid! Her daughter, her Emma, vilely used by one of these Yankee creatures as though she were not a girl from a good family, and then left on the mercy of the world! It would not do!

 

Miss Phinney's exhortations for patience, given in their wake, were falling on deaf ears.

 

"And you may tell your Major that she will NOT be returning!" Jane Green announced stridently at the door, in full view of anyone who cared to hear, before turning on her heel and marching smartly out, Emma still shamefully in tow.

 

Her mother's face was a mask of anger and disappointment all the way back to the house, though she did not speak, save only to send Emma to her room. It was the silence, Emma thought, dejectedly, that hurt the most.

 

She heard the shouting even from all the way upstairs - her mother's explosive announcement alongside her father's wounded shouts. She half-expected to have one parent or the other burst through the door, but none came - only Belinda, with a cup of tea. Emma fell into her arms weeping.

 

"There, child, you wouldn't be the first," Belinda said, sitting down to stroke her hair. "Plenty of girls done it before and plenty more gonna do it after, I'm sure. And there ain't much your mama can do to change it, now, is there?" She petted her hair again. "Now you don't have to tell me nothing, but it wasn't one of them doctors, like your mama seem to think?" Emma shook her head, not trusting her voice. No, she knew exactly from whence this calamity had come - and he was now back with General Jackson. A single night, a single, stupid choice -- oh, why had she given what he'd asked? "Well, that's something," Belinda mused sagely. 

 

That night dinner arrived on a tray.  So much the better - she didn't much feel like trying to eat with her family anyway, not when they would all stare at her like she was the new Salome, dancing wickedly before the men of Mansion House to bring dishonor on her family. Not even Alice came to see her afterwards.  

 

Her world shrank to four walls, her only entertainments the noises of the house -- officers coming and going, the sounds of horses in the street, the voices of her siblings in closed conference  with each other. 

 

The next afternoon (after two more meals on trays) Belinda was at her door.

 

"Miss Emma, your father wants you downstairs."

 

They dressed her hair as quickly as they could, changing out of the nightdress in which she'd passed most of the morning for the most modest of her work-frocks.

 

She'd never been afraid to enter her father's study before, but now, standing outside the door, Emma's heart was pounding. What would he do? He was a man for fairness  -- but fairness, she thought, wasn't for debauched daughters. Belinda knocked and waited, opening the door when she was bid.  Her father stood as the door opened, as did  - oh, god in heaven. His visitor.

 

Enthroned behind his heavy desk James Green looked every inch the family patriarch, expression stern and unamused. His visitor  - well.

 

"Reverend Hopkins just asked me if he may marry you," her father announced without any of the usual pleasantries. Emma tried not to stare. How had - well, that was probably Miss Phinney. It wasn't as though her sudden departure had been a secret - people would have asked questions. Obviously Henry had been told the truth.  "As I have heard nothing of this... attachment previously, I can imagine it is for the usual reason." He gave a long, hard look at his daughter. "Well?"

 

Emma felt her father's disapproval down to the heels of her boots and, by way of acknowledgement, hung her head.

 

Her father's frown could have cut stone. "I’m not sure who I should be more disappointed in,” he said, eyes sliding between the two sorry beings in front of his desk. “My daughter, or _ you _ .” Hopkins, to his credit, did not break under the gaze, but still, no man liked to be called a stain on his profession. “I suppose you are doing the honorable thing now - but as her father I feel I should have the courtesy of knowing how this...travesty occurred."

 

Emma felt her stomach begin to churn again. What would he say?

 

Hopkins, hat in hand and looking penitent as anything, continued the story he'd been starting when Emma had come in -- of long days and longer nights, of stolen glances in corridors and shared consolation in the face of share grief. Emma could almost see the whole thing as he spoke, as if it were the truth and not some careful embroidery on it. A long bedside vigil, a particularly late and quiet evening, an accidental encounter when one had been undressed, and then - too late -

 

"You forced yourself on her?" 

 

"No, Papa!" Emma finally remembered how to use her voice. James Green's anger was in danger of becoming extreme, and no man deserved that abuse, especially when he least deserved it. He was saving her - she at least owed him this much. "It was a ...mutual desire." Long in coming, she almost wanted to say - for that was true, at least on her part. Though, for his... She glanced at Henry, hoping he could see how much she meant it, how much she wished the story he had told was true, that it was he and not Frank who held the blame. His eyes were hard to read, but his hands were tight around the brim of his hat. How she wanted to take one of them and caress it! 

 

Or would he take that badly? He, after all, was saving her, not the other way around. Perhaps he wouldn't like that, preferring to remain aloof, a noble savior far too worthy of the thing being saved. 

 

If the story had consolation in it to Emma, it was not so for her father - he was still adamant behind the desk.

 

"Well. It'll have to be a quick wedding...though I'm sure they'll guess anyway. You'd better come to dinner, and...meet the family. We can still do some things properly." At this Mr. Green glared at his daughter, a silent reprimand for having deprived him of the usual social niceties. "Of course it won't be in style, there's a war on, but her mother will want something nice. A church ceremony, of course, as you are...of the cloth."

 

"Of course, sir."

 

"Well, I think our business is concluded," Mr. Green said, rising again from his seat. "We shall ...set a date for dinner."

 

"Thank you, sir." Henry, hesitating, held out his hand, a gesture almost as much of peace and reconciliation as the conclusion of a deal. Her father looked at it as though he'd spit in his palm first, and, eventually, Henry let the hand drop, and nodded his goodbye. "I’ll...show myself out."

 

Emma watched him leave, paralyzed, and then, remembering herself, sprinted after him. What had he - had they! -  just done?

 

"Henry!" He stopped, half-way down the porch steps, and turned, meeting her eye for the first time all morning. What agonies were in his eyes! "How did -"

 

"Miss Phinney," he said. "She came to me for counsel on what should be done, asked if I knew anything, as you and I were...close." The way he said the word gave her some measure of the fallen hopes that he had in it. "I told her I did not. She was most concerned your family...should behave as they did."

 

She silently blessed Heaven for the angel that was Mary Phinney. "You don't have to do this," she said. "I'll...I'll tell him you've lied, tell him the truth -"

 

"To what end, Emma? What purpose would that serve?" 

 

She stopped, thinking that was obvious.  _ You're being noble when you've no reason to. I've never done anything for you that would deserve such kindness.  _ "So that you wouldn't have to tie yourself to me." 

 

He swallowed, took a breath. "You say that like you think it's a burden."

 

Emma's heart caught in her throat. "...Isn't it?" 

 

Now it was his turn to look embarrassed and afraid. "That story I told ...could have been the truth. I...I prayed over it often enough.” He looked down furtively, ashamed of the admittance. “Good day, Miss Green."

 

Her heart was soaring.  _ Could have been the truth!  _ "Henry, wait, I --" She stopped him again on the steps. "The neighbors," she said quickly. "They'll wonder, when they hear...and haven't seen you..."

 

His eyes glanced at the houses to left and right, and gave a nod, letting her step down and kiss him, on the cheek, like one might chastely kiss a beau leaving after a perfectly expected visit to her father. Did she imagine that he held himself back, that he was stiff and formal only because he wanted more and did not trust himself? "Thank you," she said again, hanging on his arm. "For...everything. I hope...I won't disappoint you."  _ Like I've disappointed you already _ , she wanted to add.

 

His only answer was a smile. Slim and sorry, but a smile. "You never could."

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's coming to dinner? Henry meets the rest of the family - and they're not happy to see him.

The promised dinner was neither the very best nor the very worst Emma had attended. All the guests remained civil, more or less, and there was no shouting, breaking of glasses, or thrown plates (an occurrence for which she was sure her mother, as she surveyed her Minton, was certainly glad.) It was a small party, which seemed to put a damper on her mother’s eternal quest for brilliant dinners-- but the shortness of the invitation meant that too many had sent their regrets. In the end, it was only Jimmy, Alice, and her parents - who were quite enough to contend with on their own.

 

Her mother might have invited the neighbors, to make up the numbers, but that had risk in it -  there was an infinite care that had to taken in letting people know what was going on. It seemed to be her mother’s hope that the small matter of the baby would remain between only those that already knew, and the rest of the world (her siblings included) could be prevailed upon not to count backwards when it arrived. 

 

Her absence at the hospital had been chalked up to sudden parental protectiveness - easy enough. There was hardly society for her to be out in, so she did not have to do much hard work there. But even remaining at home was presenting its own challenges. Her siblings, for instance, upon being told that the union chaplain was to come to dinner for the purpose of being introduced as Emma’s fiance, had practically cut her out. (Would they be friendlier, Emma wondered, if they knew that Henry’s actions were protecting Frank’s child? Emma didn’t quite care to test the theory. Jimmy’s views on soldiers absent from duties at home were already best left alone, and Alice was not adept at keeping secrets, especially delicate ones.) As it was, Alice hadn’t spoken to her for several days, and insisted on leaving a room every time Emma entered it, and Jimmy was making menacing comments at every opportunity about Yankee thieves. 

 

It was only her mother’s intervention that had put a stop to that.  Her brother and sister had been sworn to cordiality for the evening, at least, though they had made no promise to being warm along with it.

 

Still, not even the smallness of the party could account for the coldness of the conversation.

 

For a while talk was sustained in the discussion of the family furniture business, the weather and the price of tea, and a dozen other sundries until, of course, Jimmy, who had until this point been glaring daggers across the table at Henry, put his glass down and demanded, point blank, that if this man was going to marry his sister he needed to know more about, as he put it, ‘his people.’ “You’re marrying one of the best thought-of families in Alexandria. We have a strong buisness, a considerable fortune, a good name. What are you bringing to this marriage,  _ Mister _ Hopkins?”

 

It was a legitimate question, albeit a little sharply put - and Emma realized in that moment how little she knew of Henry. Their time in the hospital had not left much time for talking. She knew some things, tallying them as he related his domestic situation to her family. She knew that he was from Pennsylvania - a little town some ways north of Philadelphia. That his parents were both still living, and his father was a farmer, as prosperous as was possible to be, in that line of work. That he had an older sister, Rebecca, already married and with four children (Emma knew of them - Jemma, Daniel, Harry, and Ishabel were frequent contributors to Becca’s correspondence, which Hopkins had sometimes shared aloud.) He also had two younger brothers, Samuel and Noah. Were his brothers fighting? Yes, Samuel was in the 47th Pennsylvania, currently down in Florida at Fort Taylor. Noah was still at home, but keen to go.

 

“And just what do they think about your marrying a southerner?” Jimmy asked.

 

“I have only just written my parents to let them know the news,” Henry said with an apologetic smile. “Though I’m sure they’ve guessed; I have...not hidden my attachment in my previous letters.” He glanced with little-hidden fondness at Emma, and she wondered, for a moment, if what he was saying was the truth, or another cleverly embroidered fiction.

 

“And did you tell them  _ why _ ?” Jimmy queried again, his voice cutting. Emma felt the blood drain from her face. So Jimmy had been told - or had found out. Obviously Alice knew, too, judging from the daggers she herself was sending visually across the table. Well, that accounted for more of the coldness.  “Did you tell them how you preyed upon an innocent girl and-”

 

“Jimmy, that is  _ enough. _ ” Mrs. Green glared thunderbolts at her son. “I do beg your pardon, Reverend. My son forgets his manners.” But it was clear she, too, was thinking the same thing -  _ Did you tell your people the girl is expecting your child? _ This was never going to have been a normal dinner - that spectre had been floating behind every carefully phrased remark. Dress it up all you wanted, but the fact remained - Emma was with child and this was but a hasty patch to fix it.

 

How badly she wanted to take Henry’s hand! The eyes of all upon him, like a criminal at the scaffold, like...dare she say it, Christ on the cross, suffering for someone else’s sins.  _ I gave my back to those who struck me, and my cheeks to those who plucked my beard. _

 

It did not get much better from there, and Emma could only breathe a ragged sigh of relief when the dessert plates were finally cleared and the port decanter made an appearance. “Emma, perhaps you’d like to take your fiance to the parlor,” Mrs. Green offered generously. “I’ll have Belinda bring coffee.”

 

She ushered them in, ever the hospitable hostess - and just when Emma thought she, too, might sit down and attend to her needlework, turned to leave. “Aren’t you…” 

 

“Oh, no, my dear. I think you’re quite past chaperones.” Jane Green smiled beneficently at Henry and snapped the pocket doors shut. 

 

Emma stared at the doors and wanted to cry. First Jimmy, and now this. In seven short words her mother had said more to diminish her than everything that had been said at dinner.  _ You’re quite past chaperones -  _ or, to phrase it differently -  _ No use protecting virtue you haven’t got.  _ She knew when Mama wanted to cut someone, and this was it, the same as if she’d been a former friend at a cotillion -- sweetness personified to a person’s face and viperish hate behind it. 

 

They were both standing, still, the settee an obvious destination but, somehow, too intimate. Henry found himself a seat, conspicuously to one side of the settee, and, seeing little choice, she joined him. She was trying to think of all the things she’d meant to say at dinner, all the reassurances she wanted to give, but everything had fled. For a few moments they sat in awkward silence until Henry, looking up from his study of his hands, ventured, “Miss Phinney sends her regards.”

 

Emma looked up, meeting his gaze with tentative interest. How much she wanted Mary’s counsel! But she had been forbidden guests. “I...told no one else of my visit, or its...purpose,” he went on. “I did not know what you wanted spoken of.”

 

“My mother would say that I no longer have a right to dictate what is and isn't spoken of," Emma said plainly. "Least of all to you." She looked up at Henry with apology in her eyes. "My mother wants it announced in the papers, as it would...usually be. A secret marriage usually means there's a secret to hide, she says. And I...would hate to heap more speculation on you. It's ...already unfair enough you have to listen to my brother without adding the rest of the world."

 

He nodded. “I'll make my announcement to Miss Phinney tomorrow, then, where Miss Hastings can hear, that your father's given his consent. That should serve for the rest. And I'll seek the Major's permission for a...short leave. I don't think a trip will quite be possible, given the circumstances.”

 

She thought for a moment she meant the baby before realizing he meant the general condition of the war. "My mother is quite prepared to let us have a room; she wouldn't let us go back to the hospital, certainly."

 

"She'll want a stylish wedding, I expect. The way she spoke at dinner -

 

"She knows she won't get it - that was all to belittle me. As you can imagine she's not very pleased with me at the moment.”

 

“I know the feeling.” He looked at her, trying to smile in assurance, but she could not be reassured, waiting for him to explain - which only made his expression fall, guilty for having brought it up. Oh, honest Henry! He could not dissemble like she’d been taught to do. His face went through several revolutions of guilt and indecision before he realized there was no way out except to speak. “I said I’d written my parents; my mother’s reply came this morning.” He touched his pocket. “I won’t make you read it,” he added quickly as she moved forward a little, as if she might take the letter from him. “She...had some things to say about haste, and wartime. It doesn’t matter,” he added, that reassuring smile back on his face. “She doesn’t know you.”

 

_ But it does, Henry, it does,  _ she wanted to cry _. Your mother will look at me and see a fallen woman who ensnared her son - the same way my mother looks at you and sees a base seducer who corrupted her daughter. And only one of those things is true, at least in part, but you unfairly bear the weight of both. _

 

He smoothed the fabric of his trouser-leg nervously, hunting around for something else to say and move the conversation on. “I’ve spoken with Reverend Simpson, over at the Queen Street hospital, and he’s agreed to perform the ceremony, if your parents’ pastor has objections. I know Burwell doesn’t particularly care for me. Simpson has a chapel at his disposal, or else I think the lecture hall at Saint Paul’s is still open for use.”

 

“I think they would be content to have me married at home, from the parlor,” Emma said. “I’ll ask my mother about...who she’d like to officiate.”

 

“Good. I’ll apply for the licence and take care of registering, so your father needn’t worry about signing anything. I was giving some thought to the form of service, and what you thought on the use of the word ‘obey’ ...”

 

Emma looked at him as he went on in put-upon calm about the matter of the subjugation of women suggested by the Solemnization of Matrimony as though the inclusion of two words were now the most important matter in the whole world, as if they had nothing else to worry over and solving the infinitesimally small problem of whether both man and wife were expected to obey in marriage would make all their other problems go away. Why did any of this matter? And why, why, why was he speaking of these tiny things when this...thing, this great question, remained to be discussed? Finally she exploded.  “I wish you'd just say it!" 

 

Henry looked up at her, surprised by her abruptness and this sudden change in tone.

 

"Why you're doing this...going through this...charade, letting my father and my brother and my whole family and...and your whole family hate you for something you haven't done! Why, Henry? Is it some punishment you've wished on yourself? Some other vow you've made? Because you don't deserve it, whatever you think you've done, and-"

 

"Because I didn't want to see you taken where I couldn't go!" Henry said finally, almost shouting. Emma could have sighed in relief. Here was the true Henry, not hiding behind his pastor’s face of consolation. "Because I..."He faltered, the initial courage of his outburst gone. "I wanted you for myself, and I...had such envy in my heart. I thought...if I could do this for you, if I could take this from you, perhaps you'd…” His voice broke off again, the passion that had marked his early comment reined in. “It doesn't matter," he reminded himself, swallowing whatever else he might have said. But Emma had heard enough.

 

"Perhaps I'd love you?"

 

His eyes were unbearably sad. "Yes."

 

"You stupid man." The words dropped out of her mouth before she could help it, the bindings on her tongue loosened by her anger at this whole evening of debacle after debacle. She could have cried - and, indeed, it seemed as though she would let that impulse go unrestrained as well while she was at it. "I loved you long before all this, and I'm sure I'll love you long after. And it's nothing to do with saving me, or anything like it." He was silent, and she found she needed to go on. “You’re kind and generous and full of compassion and you always put others before yourself and whatever your sins are you own them and try to set them right, even if it makes you a pig-headed fool some days, and it’d be a foolish woman who didn’t see those things and love you, and it might be a sin to say it but I wished for you, Henry Hopkins, as wretchedly as a woman ever wished for a man, and I wish you’d at least have the decency to chastise me for being a wicked, foolish Jezabel instead of holding me up like some paragon of virtue that I’m not, because I’m not the least bit worthy of you and I’d rather have that out in the open before us than whether I care if you ask me to obey you.”

 

And, speech finished, she let out the sob she’d barely been holding in and wept. The air felt clear now, what had been unspoken finally given voice. And then there was Henry, wrapping his arms around her and pillowing her face to the front of his frockcoat with no thought for the wetness of her face or the unsightly sniffling of her nose.  _ Frank never would have done this,  _ she thought to herself _ ,  _ the wool of his coat well-worn against her cheek, and the tears came up anew after that.

 

“What a sorry pair we make,” he said, his hand lingering, almost hesitant, on the back of her dress. “And I hardly think you're wicked.”

 

“Then what do you think?” she asked, pulling away from him so she could see his face. “Please, Henry.”  _ Please give me the truth. _

 

“When Miss Phinney told me my first thought was of anger. Anger at you, a little, but also at myself, for not speaking before. But then that cleared, and I was jealous, of the man who you would...share such closeness with. I wanted your wickedness. Which makes me wicked, too - and thus no man to judge. And then...I was angry, again, that he would abandon you to your family like that. He loses nothing, and you lose - everything. I spent hours convincing myself that I would not have done such, and then I realized that that was exactly what I  _ was _ doing. And then I came and spoke to your father.” He paused, wrestling with something. “Please tell me it wasn’t forced. I don’t need to know anything else but that.”

 

“It was ...of my choosing. Out of love - or what I took for love. I denied him later; I f-f-found...things he had done. Things I couldn’t forgive. But this was my own doing - no one else's.”

 

“And has the man has no share of blame at all for tempting you? The Magdalen wasn't born corrupt, and Eve didn’t take the apple until the snake told her to.”

 

“Why are you so good?”

 

“Why do you think you’re not?” He asked with a fair smile. She had no answer for him. “What did he do that you could not forgive?”

 

_ He tried to kill my friends, he told falsehoods about his purpose, he asked things I couldn’t give. I changed, and he didn’t.  _ “He lied,” she said simply, and left it at that.

 

Henry nodded. She wished dearly to ask him about the letter from his mother, but something in her said that would not be wise, and so she left it. For a moment they sat in silence, knees touching, heads bowed together into a little arch that almost, but not quite, met in the middle of the seat, the air between them full of silent expectation. “I don’t mind the word ‘obey,’” she ventured, trying to remember where they had been “But I think you do, else you wouldn’t bring it up. And it is a...serious question.”

 

“It’s been the form in my congregation, back in Pennsylvania, to ask if the couple wants it included. Many don’t, and I’m...of a like mind. Marriage should be between equals, not between a master and his...servant.”

 

“Then we won’t use it,” Emma decided aloud. Henry’s smile suddenly brightened. “What?”

 

His expression was almost childlike in his delight, and she thought he knew it, trying to master his grin. “I was only noticing you said ‘we’.”

 

“Is that not the word?” she offered with an apologetic smile. “If my family won’t have us and yours won’t, either, you and I must...pull together, for better or worse, else we’ll both drown.” She felt strange now when she say ‘we’ but it could not be helped - this was their boat now, and they would have to sail, steer, or sink. She took one of his hands in both of her own. “Perhaps we might promise to listen to one another, instead of to obey?”

 

He smiled at that, and nodded. “I like that better.”

 

“So do I.” Emma studied their hands, still laced together between them, and cast about for something to say, something soft and normal and without thorns. “Tell me more about your church at home,” she begged, and that was all that was required to shove them off the rocky shoal her outburst had cast them up upon.

 

Belinda never came with the coffee, but that was for the best; they sat, uninterrupted, for a good while longer, speaking of home, and the little white clapboard church, and the parsonage with its wild rose bushes under the windows, until the clock chimed eleven and they both remembered their manners and their work. Emma’s heart felt lighter, walking Henry to the door and promising to come to the hospital, after he’d made his announcement, to hear him preach the Sunday service.

 

“It’s a good thing, what Mr. Henry’s doing,” Belinda pronounced quietly as she helped Emma dress for bed, easing her out of the corset that was already becoming tighter than usual in different places. Emma looked up at her, wondering what she meant.  “Taking on a child that ain’t his,” she said quietly. Emma opened her mouth, but Belinda silenced her with a single authoritative finger. “You don’t gotta say anything ‘bout it, but anyone who cares to look can see that man don’t have that kind of sin in him.”

 

Belinda had always been better at seeing who was lying and who wasn’t - how many times as children had Alice broken a dish and Emma claimed that she had done it, so her sister would not be punished? Her mother would take what was said at face value, but Belinda always seemed to know the truth. There was something comforting in that. But something else in what she said caught Emma’s notice. “... Mister _Henry_?” 

 

Belinda smiled a little at that. “He’s one of the family now, ain’t he? So he’s  _ Mr _ _. Henry_ , same as your brother. Your mama and your sister might hate him, but that doesn’t mean I got to.” And, pleased with her little act of defiance, she set back to braiding Emma’s hair with a proud expression on her face that made Emma smile, and go to bed content in the knowledge that if she had no one else in the world to love her or her husband, she at least still had Belinda.   
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I actually started writing this almost immediately after I finished the first chapter, so thank you to the half-dozen or so of you who clamored for me to keep working on it. After two weeks of much keyboard bashing, I've finally gotten this somewhere where I like it. 
> 
> I was afraid that Emma is a bit wordy in this chapter, but she does have an established history of speaking in long, introspective chains of thoughts - when she's explaining to Henry what she'd tell President Lincoln her speech runs in very much the same pattern, with less emotion than we see her display here.
> 
> When I was talking about this conversation with friends, I kept talking about 'bringing the fever to a crisis' - which I hope I've done. At least now more of the cards are on the table and our lovebirds are (mostly) on the same page when it comes to talking about what's going on. In my head, Emma really wanted to tell Henry what she'd done, and Henry really didn't want to hear it - so I shifted as best I could around it. 
> 
> I debated long and hard about Belinda's dialogue at the end, but decided to keep it - I want Emma to have one ally, at least, and I like that Belinda can continue to be her clear-eyed self and push back against the Greens a little bit by it. (I imagine that she did mean to bring coffee, but heard them arguing and decided not to interupt.)


	3. Chapter 3

It could not be a usual courtship, shortened, as it was, by the urgency of things. The banns would be called for three weeks in the much diminished parish of Saint Paul's, after it was agreed that Henry's little flock at Mansion House did not quite count as a 'home parish' for either of them, which gave them three weeks to do the work of a year - three impossibly short weeks comprised of stolen hours and hurried minutes, squeezed in between Henry's daily work and Emma's preparations for the wedding. Mrs. Green had decided at last that they would be married from the parlor, and had acquiesced on the matter of Henry's friend Reverend Simpson to perform the rite, though she would not budge on the matter of Emma's gown. Every woman in the house capable of needlework had been set to the task of making over an old white summer dress into a bridal ensemble worthy of a Green family wedding. 

 

Was this how Rapunzel had felt, in the fairy story, locked in her tower, Emma wondered, as she hemmed endless yards of white silk and helped Belinda apply the lace that would hide the newly let-out bodice. She was beginning to feel like  a prisoner in her own house, let out of her room for meals and the use of the water closet, her mother afraid to let her out in public lest someone catch wind of her condition. It wasn't as though she was _ contagious _ \- but then, she remembered, how often had her mother steered her away from other young ladies who were known to be 'compromised' at dinner parties and balls thinking that their sin might somehow, by association, rub off on her?

 

But there was one thing she would take for herself - one tiny, miniscule grasp at freedom. Her mother looked daggers at her when she descended the stairs in her green plaid, hymnal in hand, shawl tucked nicely around her shoulders so that its fringe might disrupt the idea that she was gaining weight. “And where are you going?” Mrs. Green asked, rising from the settee.

  
“Church, mother,” she pronounced evenly. “I’m going to hear Henry preach at Mansion House. You’re welcome to come,” she offered generously, watching her mother’s still-scandalized expression. “But Belinda’s agreed to chaperone me. I’ll be back in time for dinner.”

 

There. Let her argue with that. Jane considered this a moment and then settled back into her chair, letting Emma and Belinda go on their way. If her mother was afraid about what the neighbors would say at least now she could report that Emma went to visit him on Sundays to hear his preaching. It would make her sound more pious than she was, but that couldn’t be helped. If she was marrying a man of the cloth she was going to have to start making an effort with her immortal soul, and this was her start.

 

She had not been regular, in her church attendance, since the war had started. The more time she spent at Mansion House the less relevant Reverend Burwell's sermons had seemed, and the less time she had for listening to them.  "Illness doesn't rest on the Sabbath," she remembered saying to her mother once when the subject of her working on Sundays was raised, and no more objection were given after that. She'd known, then, that Henry tried to keep a service on Sundays of moderate duration, but the urge to attend it had never been strong. Now, however, she craved it, the same way that she was starting to crave Belinda's corn pudding and the yellow relish her aunt sent them every year from her plantation. In his sermons there were inestimable riches, a golden treasure-horde of opportunity to learn more about him and the way he viewed the world. 

 

"Brothers, I would like today to discuss a passage from Isaiah, the 65th chapter, where the prophet begins, "I am sought of them that ask not for me; I am found of those that sought me not..."

 

She didn't know if this was a good sample of his usual style - would he change the way he spoke, knowing she would be there to hear it? How wonderful his voice sounded when he read! She'd often enjoyed listening to him read on the wards, the Book of Common Prayer, in the main, but letters, too, and the occasional novel. But the bible, oh. Such poetry was in him when he read aloud from that.

 

"It is easy for us, brothers and sisters, to think, as Isaiah's audience did, that this passage only refers to the world to come, the world that John tells us of again in Revelation, 21, 'I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea...' Isaiah  _ was _ speaking of the world to come - but with the coming of Christ a new heaven and a new earth was created here, among the living. It was perhaps not so easy for the prophet's audience to understand that possibility, but we understand it. We are living in a time of great change- It is all around us now! Our former world is passing away -and we must embrace the new age, the new Jerusalem, and ask ourselves - what burden can we bear that can bring the Kingdom of God about here on earth? what change can we make that will bring about the new heaven?" He had let that sink in.

 

“Will it be the way we act? The way we speak? Or will it be in larger changes  - we can find God’s ways in all of these things. Several of you know, I think, that there has been, or will be, a change in my life - I have recently made an offer of marriage, and it has been accepted." Scattered but enthusiastic applause, and at least one wolf-whistle - Hopkins laughed a little at that. "Marriage is one of the tools given to us by the Almighty for the work he sets us, for this change from the old world to the new - Genesis tells us that a man must  'leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.' In that action his world, the bridegroom's world, and the bride's, are re-made. I ask that you pray for me, and my new wife, as we make this change - as we will also pray for you."

 

Emma was glad her mother had chosen not to come; she wouldn't have, couldn't have, understood the great happiness that rested in Emma's heart as she listened to Henry say this, only remembering at the end, when he looked at her a moment, that she was the happy bride to whom he had alluded. How rosy he had made it sound - how picturesque and proper, as if it were not the thrown-together martyrdom she knew it to be. But if she needed proof of his sincerity, there it was, proclaimed for the world - and the rest of the staff at Mansion House - to hear.

 

Emma lingered in her seat at the end of the service, letting the crowd disperse a little before rising to join Henry. "That was well spoken," Anne Hastings was saying effusively to Hopkins. "Such a good message for everyone, especially now." She turned in the direction of Henry's glance, her expression flitting curiously between interest and disdain. "Oh, Miss Green! How lovely to see you - and my congratulations, again, on your happy news." The expression on her face indicated the congratulations were merely a matter of form. "Such a ...sudden development." Her meaning couldn’t have been clearer if she’d painted it on the wall -  _ just what is going on between you two? _

 

“I would have liked to wait, but that wasn’t possible.” Emma felt strengthened, somehow, by Henry’s presence at her elbow. “A long engagement would have been my preference, but I received a letter from my parish, asking if I would consider replacing the chaplain with the local regiment, and...some haste was required.”

 

“You are to leave us?” Anne asked, this news almost as interesting as that which had sparked it. (Not that Anne cared about the loss of the chaplain. Emma could not recall a time that Anne had made anything out of religion, or God; in fact, she was rather sure the only reason Anne was here at all this morning was to see her.)

 

“There is some threat of it, yes - and it would be at the front. The danger there is greater, and we...thought a quick marriage better than none at all...the matter of ...pensions and such.” 

 

Henry said all of this with such conviction that for a moment Emma completely believed him - a circumstance, she also realized, that was becoming more and more common the longer she knew him. For a man of the cloth, it appeared Henry Hopkins was extremely adept at lying. Anne, for her part, seemed to believe him, too, though she retained a little of her natural-born suspicion, and contented herself with asking about plans for the wedding, Emma’s dress and flowers and where the service was to be held until she was summoned back to her ward by an orderly. “I should go,” Henry apologized, clasping Emma’s hand. “Should you like me to...walk you home?”

 

“I brought Belinda,” Emma said. “But it’s kind of you to offer.”

 

He nodded, deciding, finally, that he should go, and, after a brief hesitation, kissed her softly and quickly on the cheek in farewell. Emma felt her whole body go warm, and watched him leave with the frank feeling that she would not have minded a longer kiss, no matter what rules it would have broken. She lingered a moment more and then made her way outside. The hallway seemed so strange to her, now - should she stay, look in on some of her old patients? Or was that rude, when one was only visiting?

 

"Leaving so soon?" Mary’s friendly voice cut through her reverie, and Emma turned, relieved to have found another friendly face - the face she’d perhaps wished most to see on her trip here today -- after Henry’s, of course. Wished - and dreaded, too. 

 

"My mother expects me home," Emma offered feebly, gesturing with a glove.

 

"At least stay a little while for some tea." Emma looked at Miss Phinney, considering what the older woman must think of her, a fallen girl foolish enough to get pregnant and take a wholly respectable man down with her in shame, a promising young woman throwing away a  - but there was no censure in Mary's eyes - only sympathy. "I believe Belinda is still down in the contraband camp - they're having their own prayer service," Mary supplied, mistaking Emma's reluctance as a pause search for the older woman's approval. "She'll be a while yet."

 

How was she to refuse such a ready-made excuse? "I'd like that very much, Miss Phinney."

 

Mary disappeared to boil water, and Emma waited, alone, in the hallway, one more lady visitor adrift in the hospital, purposeless. The orderlies were clearing the day room of its benches and chairs, pulling them back to the sides of the room so it might resume its role as a recreation area and ersatz tea-room. It was strange, being back in Mansion House with nothing to do. Emma watched the familiar crowd pass her by and felt a pang that she was not going with them - that the only work requiring her attention today was the ever-expansive hem and the ruffle she was applying to it. Finally, Mary returned with a tea-tray, letting Emma come back inside the newly put to rights dayroom and arranging the cups and saucers between the two of them as she sat down.

 

"Has the sickness stopped?" Emma looked up from her tea with surprise in her eyes, and Mary smiled apologetically. "I imagine your mother won't talk about it much with you - the baby."

 

"She's as much as said she won't say a word about it until after the wedding," Emma said with half a smile, laying her hand over the hard lines of her corset. "And then she's just expecting people to go along with it  - that it's a... lucky first try, or some such thing. It's...it's hard, Miss Phinney - wanting to talk of it and knowing no one wants to hear. My brother and sister won't look at me, my mother's as good as disowned me, my father hardly speaks to me."

 

"But no one will be  _ happy _ for you," Mary supplied. Emma nodded, feeling a little teary.

 

"I know I shouldn't, I know what I've done is wrong, only I...I want to be a mother, now. I didn't, at first, but now I've...now I've hope."  _ Is it wrong to be happy about such things? To want to be a mother, and a wife, when I’ve done nothing to be worthy of them? _

 

"I don't think you're the only one." Mary smiled at Emma's look of concern. "I was listening to the Chaplain talking of you the other day. I don't think I've seen him ever look so hopeful. Excited, even. He’s very much looking forward to the wedding.” She paused, her smile softening. “He loves you very much, Miss Green. I hope you know that - that you’ve seen it, at least, if he’s not told you so directly.” 

 

Emma thought of his face in her father’s study, of the expressions he had made in the parlor the other night as they talked of home, of his voice, raised and triumphant, as he had announced his forthcoming wedding to his audience this morning. “I do know it. I only hope... I deserve him.”

 

“You do.” Mary’s voice was firm, unyielding in the softest sense, her gaze direct and full of belief that what she said now was, and only could be, the truth. “Never doubt you do.” 

 

They sat for a while drinking their tea and listening to the sounds of the hospital around them. Emma felt more relaxed in Mary’s company than she had for weeks, relieved of the silent burden of pretending that none of this had happened, that there was no baby, that she was an awful woman who deserved to be shut away. “Has anything been said about where you’ll live, after the wedding?

 

Emma shook her head. “I can’t very well move here, and there’s no way on earth we could set up in town, with rents as they are. My parents’ll let me stay, and have him over on Sundays, for dinner, I think. Maybe they’ll let him move in - but I don’t know if he’d want that, being away from the hospital I mean. It won’t be anything like a proper marriage, anyway, at least until...” Emma glanced, nervous and ashamed, at her hands.

 

“But there’ll be love in it, and that’s what counts,” Mary added sagely. “When I first married Gustav we were both living in company boarding houses and couldn’t find rooms within our means. And of course I couldn’t come and visit him, and he couldn’t come and visit me.”

 

“How did you manage?”

 

“Many, many walks on Sunday afternoons,” Mary said with a smile, remembering rosier days. “We’d meet at the Unitarian church for the service, and then we’d take a walk on the canal. Sometimes we’d stop for a cup of tea, or Gustav would buy us sticky buns and we’d eat them while we watched the millwheels and he’d tell me about all the machines inside. Sometimes before we went home he’d stop and buy me a posy of flowers to take home, so that I might remember him, when I saw them in my room. When it got dark he’d drop me off at home, and then walk back to his own lodgings. That was always the hardest part of Sundays - watching him walk away. And yet ...I can’t remember being happier on those walks.”

 

“I forget that you were married.”

 

“It seems a world away now,” Mary admitted. “Many times and many seasons, mm? Sometimes if I’ve an hour free on Sundays I’ll still take a walk, and buy myself sweets, and bring home a posy of flowers, to remember him. I didn’t, for a long time, but recently I’ve found it brings me comfort. You must build your own little sacraments, in marriage, else it’ll all become routine, and you’ll come to resent it.”

 

Just as Emma was nodding, there was a knock at the doorframe, and a familiar face stuck his head inside, expression slightly surprised. “Belinda said you hadn’t left yet,” Henry said, stepping into the room with his hat in his hand. 

 

“I thought Mr. Henry might like to walk you home,” Belinda said with a knowledgeable smile, standing behind the Chaplain like some kind of guardian angel, pressing him to action he might not otherwise attempt. “Seeing as how we’s expecting him to dinner tonight, since they don’t feed him near enough here. Thought maybe you’d like to show him the path along the river you like so much, talk a little.”

 

“That sounds like a lovely idea, Belinda,” Mary said, rising from her seat and taking Emma’s cup. “How kind of you to suggest it.”

 

“Thank you for the tea, Miss Phinney,” Emma said, collecting her shawl around her shoulders and making sure she still had her prayerbook.

 

“You’re welcome at any time, Miss Green. If you need me for anything - anything at all - you have only to stop by, even if it’s just to talk -- or send for me, and I’ll come.” The seriousness of her gaze, and the hand she laid along her arm, reassured Emma.  _ When the baby comes,  _ her dark eyes said.  _ You needn’t be alone for that. _ Emma nodded.

 

“I’ll remember that,” she promised, and Mary nodded, letting Henry offer Emma his arm and lead her downstairs, Belinda trailing a good distance behind them, less chaperone than shadow.

 

“She loves you quite terribly, you know. Belinda,” Henry said with a smile, once they had cleared the heavier traffic of town and begun the walk to the park, the longer route home to the Green house. “I thought she was going to tell me off when she found me for not suggesting a walk home myself.”

 

“She’s been in charge of me since I was out of the cradle,” Emma said fondly. “Almost as much of my mother as my mother is. And she likes you tremendously.”

 

“Does she now?”

 

“She wouldn’t have come after you to walk me home if she didn’t. I’d take the complement,” Emma said with a smile, watching Henry glance behind them. “Her standards are impossibly high. Though she can be very bossy, as you saw. And she’s likely to fuss over you, now that you’re family.” At the mention of the word family Henry’s face fell a little. “What is it?”

 

“I had another letter from home.”

 

“Your mother again?”

 

“No, my sister. Don’t worry - it wasn’t bad. She wrote she’s happy for me, if a little confused, but that she was sure I would have my reasons and that they would be good ones. And she wrote to you.” Henry paused, rummaging in his jacket pocket until he produced the letter, a small thing, folded into a crisp square and addressed  _Miss Emma Green, Mansion House Hospital, Alexandria, Virginia_. Emma took it, paused, and looked at Henry. “You can read it now, if you like - I don’t mind.”

 

She moved them to the side of the path, opening the folds and letting her eyes adjust to the park’s shade and the afternoon sun.

 

_ Dear Miss Green, _

 

_ I do not feel right calling you by your Christian name yet, as we have not been formally been introduced. Henry has written that you are not a woman to be offended by such things, but it still feels a liberty I have not been permitted. _

 

_ I write to introduce myself to you, and apologize for the unkind behavior of the rest of my family, my mother in particular. I’m sure he’s told you of what she’s written, and I beg you do not judge us all by her unkind words. Henry is the oldest son, and she sets much store by him. I do not think there is a woman living who could fill her expectations for a daughter in law, so please do not trouble yourself too much over her opinions. She will have a little while to come around to the idea of Henry’s marriage, and I hope that time will soften her. I do not think there is any chance of us being there for the wedding, so you must not worry on that account. Please give your family our best love and wishes in our absence. I look forward to meeting you, whenever that will be. Henry has always written so highly of you that I feel quite sure we shall be good friends, and that you will take good care of him while he remains in Alexandria. _

 

_ Yours in sisterly affection, _

_ Rebecca _

 

“She says she’s excited to meet me,” Emma said. “That I mustn’t trouble myself over your mother. She sounds very...hospitable. Kind.”

 

“She is,” Henry confirmed. “And not just in her letters.” 

 

“I wish I could brush off my mother as easily as she does.” She turned to look at Henry. “You don’t have to come to dinner, whatever Belinda says. I know the food’s better than what’s at the hospital, but sitting at the dinner table with my father staring at you like he’s thinking of murder is asking too much.”

 

“Does he? I never noticed.” Emma rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t bother me - truly. And any time I look up and see him, I turn and look at you, giving him the same glare back.”

 

“I don’t glare!” 

 

“I think you do, Emma, most terribly. Belinda’s seen it, I’m sure.”

 

“Seen what, Mr. Henry?” Belinda caught up with them, hearing her name invoked.

 

“The glare Miss Green gives her father when she’s angry at him.”

 

“Oh, indeed I have, Mr. Henry. Wouldn’t want to get between her and anything when she got that face on,” Belinda said in agreement, smiling at Emma’s surprise that she should be so betrayed. But she could not remain angry for very long, not when Henry’s arm pulled her closer to him, and she heard him chuckle, and she remembered the feeling she'd gotten as Henry had stood by her and they faced Anne Hastings together. And she could not help thinking, a little, about what Mary had said about deserving hope, and happiness, turning all those things over in her head as they walked home and prepared to brave her family together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The only thing that was on the original plan for this chapter was Henry's sermon -and even that was a total wing-and-prayer effort; I just decided the text for it earlier this week. (I've no idea if the theology expressed in it is accurate or in any way good; keep in mind a modern Catholic wrote it.) It was my intention to skip straight to the wedding, but darn me if Emma and Henry wanted to get in a little more courting, first.
> 
> If you're enjoying this story, I strongly recommend reading RedFlagsandDiamonds' fic "In Blood and Breath" which follows quickly on the heels of this fic. It's a truly lovely follow-through to this story, but comes very highly recommended on its own considerable artistic merit.

**Author's Note:**

> Who doesn't love hopelessly noble, self-sacrificing Henry? Really, who doesn't? 
> 
> We don't know exactly how far Emma and Frank went in 2.1. (The shots given indicate it wasn't quite as far as this - but who knows what happens when the camera cuts out, right?) But let's just say it went further than a dropped blouse. With Frank gone (and not likely to come back soon) Emma's baby would be born out of wedlock and without even the slight promise of a father that an engagement would bring. (Of course, would Emma *want* to tell her parents she was hiding Frank in their basement?) The Greens have a few options to side-step scandal- send her into the country (?) so she could have the child away from society and give it away somehow, or arrange a convenient marriage to cover the thing up. Or, you know, a well-meaning friend from the hospital could step in. 
> 
> (Never mind that the well-meaning friend and the daughter in question have an unspoken attraction.)
> 
> So I might...go forward with this. Or I might not. 
> 
> Inspired by middlemarch's The Harm of Years Was On Him, in which Henry proposes marriage to Alice to get her out of a jam related to her spying.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [In Blood and Breath](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10438113) by [RedFlagsAndDiamonds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedFlagsAndDiamonds/pseuds/RedFlagsAndDiamonds)




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